The flyers that Elizabeth Whitney who is organizing a demonstration for monday against the point Reyes Light. The new publisher of the Point Reyes Light that resadents are planning a demonstration on Monday others started a competing newspaper.
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007 KURT ROGERS POINT REYES STATION SFC
THE CHRONICLE PTREYESLIGHT_0162_kr.jpg MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE / NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

The flyers that Elizabeth Whitney who is organizing a demonstration for monday against the point Reyes Light. The new publisher of the Point Reyes Light that resadents are planning a demonstration on Monday ... more

Photo: KURT ROGERS

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Joel Hack is the publisher of the new West Marin Pilot.
The new publisher of the Point Reyes Light that resadents are planning a demonstration on Monday others started a competing newspaper.
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007 KURT ROGERS POINT REYES STATION SFC
THE CHRONICLE PTREYESLIGHT_0011_kr.jpg MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE / NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

Joel Hack is the publisher of the new West Marin Pilot.
The new publisher of the Point Reyes Light that resadents are planning a demonstration on Monday others started a competing newspaper.
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, ... more

Photo: KURT ROGERS

Image 3 of 4

Elizabeth Whitney who is organizing a demonstration for monday against the point Reyes Light. walks down the street in Potnt Reyes Station on her way to put up flyers. With her dog Rosie.
The new publisher of the Point Reyes Light that resadents are planning a demonstration on Monday others started a competing newspaper.
THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2007 KURT ROGERS POINT REYES STATION SFC
THE CHRONICLE PTREYESLIGHT_0105_kr.jpg MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE / NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

Elizabeth Whitney who is organizing a demonstration for monday against the point Reyes Light. walks down the street in Potnt Reyes Station on her way to put up flyers. With her dog Rosie.
The new publisher of ... more

Photo: KURT ROGERS

Image 4 of 4

WEST MARIN COUNTY / Nothing laid-back about paper's readers / Community weekly's changes have faithful taking to the streets

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It is easy to be cynical about newspapers these days, what with all the layoffs and a public seemingly more interested in the rantings of bloggers.

But the people of West Marin County care about their little paper so much they are willing to fight.

In fact, a good old-fashioned newspaper war is percolating in the bucolic region, where the weekly Point Reyes Light has been a dominant intellectual force in the community and a standard for community newspapers since 1979, when it was awarded a public-service Pulitzer Prize.

The publisher of the Light has so agitated residents of the 14 villages in the region that demonstrations are being organized and a rival publisher is starting up a competing newspaper, tentatively called the West Marin Pilot.

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"People have told us they don't like the way the Point Reyes Light is run," said Joel Hack, a longtime newspaper editor in Bodega Bay who is planning a July start date for a new paper, which will be renamed by readers. "We found a need. We're going to fill it."

The new paper will focus on what Hack called "community service journalism," which he described as "the school board, the fire district and Aunt Mabel's award-winning raspberry jam."

The paper, published by Hack and printer Scot Caldwell, already has 44 subscriptions. "That's a lot," said Hack, "for a nonexistent newspaper with no name."

It will feature several former Light employees, including Jim Kravets, the former managing editor.

"The community has said very clearly what they want in a community newspaper," said Kravets, who left the Light in September. "People really want to have a community newspaper represent them in a way they feel is accurate. That is more or less the call we are responding to."

The move turns up the heat on Robert Plotkin, the brash former Monterey County deputy district attorney who bought the Light in 2005.

The 37-year-old publisher has been attacked from all sides since he vowed to turn the Light into the New Yorker magazine of the West. His hyperbole struck a sour note in the rural area of 15,000 residents, who live in such places as laid-back Bolinas, historic Point Reyes Station and Woodacre, home of an internationally recognized meditation center inspired by a big boulder known as Spirit Rock. The locals say they don't like the idea of Manhattanites with pens hustling around their communities.

Plotkin's well-publicized clash with the Light's former publisher, Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mitchell, further alienated the locals.

For his part, Plotkin said he is not worried about the competition.

"There will be a flash of interest in any new publication," he said. "People love the spectacle of a media war, but the long-term viability of a company trying to start up a newspaper in Marin is improbable. Dave had three papers start up against him, and each time it was a burden, but one that eventually passed."

Hack, who was recently sued by Plotkin for hiring Mitchell to write for him in violation of the Light sales agreement, said e-mails and letters of support are flowing. He said 80 possible names for the paper have already been submitted.

"What we are hearing from folks is that they are so glad we are going to be covering their community," said Hack, who promised lots of pictures and names of locals. "People want to know about themselves. That's the function of a community newspaper."

Perhaps sensing the competition, Plotkin has recently taken steps to address community concerns. He said he is publishing more letters, starting up a community calendar, establishing a naturalist column and hiring locals from each town to write columns.

He said his staff of seven scribes will include four new interns with degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, two of them concentrating solely on the issue of climate change. A UC Berkeley journalism school graduate also will be knocking about.

"I love this community," he said, "and I hope that one day it will love me back."

Still, criticism of the Light has snowballed to the point that community leaders are planning a demonstration called "Take Back the Light" at 10 a.m. Monday in front of the newspaper offices in Point Reyes Station.

Elizabeth Whitney, who is organizing the protest, said that to make room for the interns, Plotkin fired most of the Mitchell-era employees who had not already quit. He also hired a firm from Tampa, Fla., to redesign the paper, a change she described as horrifying.

"Since Plotkin started a year and a half ago, it has just been one outrageous thing after the next," said Whitney, a 64-year-old former community newspaper publisher. "I want to wake people up and say, 'Yeah, well you can do something about it.' "

Plotkin's crew of interns will be hitting the pavement at about the same time Monday that Whitney's group of angry readers will be arriving at the newspaper doorstep. At a time when the usefulness and viability of newspapers is being questioned, the lively debate in West Marin is, if anything, a heartening development for journalism.

"It's a journalist's dream to work in a community where people don't just pick up the paper out of rote, but run to it," Kravets said. "It is hard to gain the hearts of the people, let alone keep them, but these people are throwing their hearts around."